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Presidential Advisor Says Indonesia Not Ready for Democracy
By Kazi Mahmood, IslamOnline Correspondent
JAKARTA, Dec. 10 (IslamOnline) - A political advisor to President Megawati Sukarnoputri on Monday said Indonesia lacks the proper climate to become a democratic country due to the divides between its political, ethnic and religious groups.
Cornelis Lay of Gadjah Mada University in Yogyakarta, citing a Dutch survey, said the fragmented structure of Indonesian society prohibited people of various backgrounds from interacting freely.
The Jakarta Post English-language daily newspaper quoted the presidential advisor as saying that only a colonial power or a repressive authority marked by the kings could have the capability to uniting the differences.
His comments join those of Consultative Assembly Speaker Amien Rais, who earlier this year said democracy in Indonesia was still elusive.
Rais added that the country needed a good 10 to 20 years to really gather momentum and become a democratic society.
Indonesia, ruled for more than 30 years under the iron-fist of former President General Suharto, has experienced democracy since the collapse of the Golkar-led regime in 1998.
However, observers say the experience, thus far, has been sour and that the impeachment of former president Abdurrahman Wahid sadly contributed to the negative experience of democracy.
Cornelis was speaking at a seminar entitled "Religious and Ethnic Conflicts in Indonesia: Analysis and Resolution".
"In some regions in Indonesia," he added, alluding to his own research, "the whole economic building of many regions is based on ethnic category."
The butchery businesses in particular regions, he said, have always been in the hands of certain ethnic groups - to the near complete exclusion of outsiders. "The same pattern applies to other commodities," he added.
According to Cornelis, such ethnic-based economic phenomenon has strong resonance in many parts of Indonesia.
"What happened in Kupang in 1999 was triggered by a change in the economic arrangement pattern between indigenous and non-indigenous groups," said Cornelis, referring to religious conflict that hit East Nusa Tenggara province in 1999.
"Non-indigenous people, the Makassar and Buginese traders who were previously only allowed to be peddlers," he added, "started to sell other commodities such as coconuts."
"You can find pluralistic society in almost every civilization in the world, but the fragmented pluralistic society like the one in Indonesia is rarely found," Cornelis said.
Cornelis also spoke of the religious fragmentation in Indonesia, a majority Muslim nation with 212 million people.
He said religious and ethnic groups co-exist in Indonesia on the basis of stereotypes.
"For example, Muslims always see Christians as trying to convert Muslims into Christianity by offering staple food and clothes - while Christians always see Muslims as fundamentalist, radical, and intolerant," he said.
The presidential adviser said Muslims, as a majority, for instance, often feel that they have more rights than minorities; minority groups, on the other hand, use their diminished status as rationale to seek privileges in social, political, or economic life.
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